Interviews

Kasia Piasecka …Success Story

This interview is over 1 year old and may no longer be up to date or reflect the interviewee/interviewees’ positions

This interview was from 2012 and the interviewee has since found another position as well!  Congrats, Kasia!

kasiapNaomi:  How did you find your current job?
Kasia:  The state of Rhode Island’s Office of Library & Information Services (OLIS) Jobline has treated me very well during the last three years. With the exception of one paid internship opportunity and one student position found through my GSLIS program’s listserv, I have applied and interviewed for five other positions, which are now listed on my resume. 
 
Naomi: Favorite library you have been to?
Kasia: The North Kingstown Free Library has captured my heart! For the past ten months, I have been working at the library as a paid intern. I love the welcoming environment, the staff, and how the library thrives as a community place with its diverse offerings of programs.
 
Naomi: Favorite book?
Kasia:  Anything by travel writer, Maarten J. Troost, “If I Stay” by Gale Foreman, most dystopian/sci-fi young adult fiction, and I also love reading historical non-fiction and memoirs. 
 
Naomi: Favorite thing about libraries/ library technology?
Kasia:  Before I fell into the world of librarianship, I never thought I would grow to love teaching. Surprisingly enough, I now look forward to teaching people how to use computers and confront different research projects! As a public librarian who loves working with children and teens, I love getting involved with reader’s advisory services and getting my hands dirty with public relations work. I’m very enthusiastic about creating a lifelong partnership between young people and reading and information. Libraries have so much to offer and I’m passionate about getting the word out and advocating for them as much as possible.
Naomi: Any websites or feeds or blogs we should be following?
Kasia: My friend, fellow YA librarian, and editor of The Hub, Gretchen Kolderup, has a wonderful blog, where she discusses everything-YA, goings-on in YALSA, and occasionally reviews YA lit.  I also recommend the YALSA blog!

Naomi: Best piece of job hunting advice?
Kasia: Many of my most recent job leads have been through contacts that I met while I was in grad school, through practicums and internships, and at conferences and at other professional networking events. Many of those positions I would have never heard about otherwise. Thus, my best piece of job hunting advice is to get past your initial shyness of meeting new people and network as much as humanly possible. Before I graduated from my program, I attended a library careers and networking panel with four professional librarians. Afterward, I contacted each of the librarians, thanked them for coming to the panel, and asked them a few questions that I wasn’t able to ask them during the panel session. My conversations with these librarians sparked valuable connections that I wouldn’t have gained otherwise and gave me additional insight into the field that I’m deeply committed to.
Kasia Piasecka graduated with her MLIS in December 2011 and currently works as a Reference Assistant at the Newport Public Library in Newport, RI, where she first began her library career as a young adult aide in 2008. Throughout her studies, she remained active in professional organizations, including the Rhode Island Library Association and YALSA, and worked in numerous libraries, developing a true love of reference and young adult services. In addition, she is passionate about youth advocacy, mobile libraries, century riding and organic farming.

Naomi House

Naomi House, MLIS, is the founder and publisher of the popular webzine and jobs list INALJ.com (formerly I Need a Library Job) and former CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) of T160K.org, a crowdfunding platform focused on African patrimony, heritage and cultural projects. INALJ was founded in October 2010 with the assistance of her fellow Rutgers classmate, Elizabeth Leonard. Its social media presence has grown to include Facebook (retired in 2016), Twitter and a LinkedIn group, in addition to the interviews, articles and jobs found on INALJ. INALJ has had over 21 Million page hits and helped many, many thousands of librarians find employment! Through grassroots marketing, word of mouth and a real focus on exploring unconventional resources for job leads, INALJ grew from a subscription base of 20 friends to a website with over 500,000 visits in one month. Naomi believes that well-sourced quantity is quality in this narrow job market and INALJ reflects this with many new jobs published daily. She has also written for the 2011, 2012 and 2013 LexisNexis Government Info Pro and many other publications in the past decade. She presents whenever she can, including serving on three panels at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in Las Vegas; as breakout presenter at OCLC EMEA in Cape Town, South Africa; as a keynote speaker at the Virginia Library Association annual meeting; at the National Press Club in Washington DC; McGill University in Montreal, Canada; the University of the Emirates, Dubai, MLIS program and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Naomi was a Reference, Marketing and Acquisitions Librarian for a contractor at a federal library outside Washington, DC, and has been living and working in Budapest, Hungary and Western New York State. She spent years running her husband’s moving labor website, fixed and sold old houses and assisted her husband cooking delicious Pakistani food. She is preparing to re-enter the workforce and is job hunting. Her husband is now the co-editor of INALJ, a true support!  She has heard of spare time but hasn’t encountered it lately. She pronounces INALJ as eye-na-elle-jay. 

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